


Book Five: Nothing

by CalmSpirited



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, I have No Excuse, LOK/DBD Crossover, Multi, bt here eit is, but take my 3 am word vomit, i worte this faster than anything else i cant fucking believe it, im literal trash im sorry if i dissapoint the fandoms, with a crossover nobody wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-27 14:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16704676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalmSpirited/pseuds/CalmSpirited
Summary: What was supposed to be a celebration of two major events becomes the perfect opportunity for a new kind of evil to plague Korra's world, one they may never recover from.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warning ------> trash ahead
> 
> hi since i wrote a commission for lok fandom ive had this idea in my head tht wouldnt go away so here it is
> 
> idk how far this will go or how much of a thing it will be, but i can guarantee at least two more chapters, and ill giive more background on stuffs next chapter
> 
> either way, enjoy my fandom slut trash folks smooch

_ “I’ve always wanted to see what the Spirit World’s like.” _

 

_ “Sounds perfect.”  _ With her heart racing, Korra had taken Asami up on her suggestion, leading the both of them down to where the new Spirit World portal had been created during her fight with Kuvira, hand in hand, thinking of countless ways to lead her around and to show her all the beautiful sights and creatures that Korra had already become acquainted with over time-  _ how to introduce your new girlfriend to magical spirits, a guide by Avatar Korra. _

 

True, Asami was a tough and strong woman who went fearlessly into battle, but still, magical flying Spirit creatures weren’t seen everyday, even though they  _ had  _ just been released back into their world.

 

“Hang on.” The Avatar whispered to Asami before giving the woman a brief kiss on the lips while she led them both to the portal, the  _ giant beam of light  _ that was super hard to miss in the middle of the crater that the plasma weapon had made, and made sure to have both of her hands firmly interlocked with her new girlfriends and Korra took them both into the Spirit World, nearly bubbling over with excitement on all the things she could show and teach Asami.

 

In fact, she nearly tripped over herself as she stepped out of the light, Asami catching her just in time with a soft laugh that made Korra blush with embarrassment and  _ feelings _ . “Ignore my left feet, Miss Sato, but here we are!” Throwing her hands out dramatically, Korra watched Asami’s face closely for her reaction…

 

It was a  _ concerned  _ reaction. “What…  _ is that? _ ” She spoke lowly, as if trying to keep out of hearing range. And following her finger, she saw what had her worried. It was a black… mass, the only way Korra could describe it; a black mass with claws and vaguely resembled a spider, but with none of the body features.

 

Korra had never seen such a  _ Spirit  _ before, and the sight of it filled her with dread and apprehension, such so that she immediately went on guard and stepped in front of Asami, ready to defend herself and her girlfriend if necessary. “I don’t know, Asami. I’ve never seen it before…”  _ One, two, three  _ steps toward the mass before it made a gurgling noise, so soft that Korra almost missed it, before it’s claws shot up, then came downward directly in front of it, and raised itself up slightly, repeating the motion as if trying to haul itself out of the ground.

 

_ This is wrong.  _ A voice told her in her head.  _ This is evil. _ Raava. The voice was toneless, but she recognized it right away.  _ An ancient evil, Korra- Kuvira! Stop her! She’s going to unleash it!  _ But Korra felt as if she  _ couldn’t  _ go, thinking that if this  _ thing _ tried to escape, she needed to try and  _ stop _ it. She turned to Asami, with perhaps the most  _ determined _ look in her eye Asami had ever seen on the young woman. 

 

“Asami!” Korra yelled. “Kuvira- she’s about to do something- you have to stop her  _ now _ !” Raising her arms in an offensive stance, she suddenly started to feel  _ small  _ as the mass grew in size, starting to blob over her.

 

Asami, immediately sensing that Korra knew something  _ bad  _ was about to happen, took off, asking while stepping back in the portal “What is she gonna do?”

 

_ YOU MUST STOP HER NOW! _ Korra spoke again, thi stime her voice shaking with the quakings of  _ fear.  _ “I don’t know, just stop her!”

 

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

 

_ Now is the time, Kuvira. _

 

The metal bender watched her guards with a blank stare, sweat dripping off her forehead, knowledge of what she was about to do making her heart race.  _ I can turn off the restraints- only for a few moments, but that will be plenty of time for you to strike. _

 

“Yes.” She muttered to the voice she heard, so low her lips barely moved. The guards did not show that they had heard her, if they did at all. “Then I will have my throne back?”

 

_ Yes, you will, after you complete my mission, and you know what that is. _

 

“Yes. I will not fail this time like with the Avatar.”

 

_ The Avatar is not here to stop you, I made sure of it. Are you ready, Kuvira? _

 

“I will not fail you, or myself.” The restrains around her hand fell lose, and Kuvira saw that her wrists easily slipped free, her metal bending powers flowing freely within her veins again.

 

_ Strike now, Kuvira! _

 

Shooting out her hands, the bars of her cell immediately crunched around the edges, pulling them out of their post, and she pushed it with her Chi, crushing the two guards that were positioned in front of it against the wall.  _ Hard,  _ and she noticed with twisted pleasure that they did not get up nor move.

 

_ That is a start, but I need many more.  _ Kuvira turned her her left, down the hallway, seeing the shadows of more guards rushing to her position, and retracted the jail bars from the walls, and shot them at the guards when they rounded the corner, impaling three of them and watched as a fourth one turned tail at the sight of their comrades impaled against the walls and ran off. She started after the fourth, but the voice in her head spoke again, feeling a shadow hand wrap around her shoulder.

 

_ Ignore that one. Remember where I told you to go; the wedding. _

 

“The wedding.” If anyone could see Kuvira right now, they could see her fully black eyes turned towards the direction of the wedding that was, unbeknownst to her, taking place just a few blocks away. Observing her surroundings, she metal bended her jail cell bench, transforming it into a makeshift battering ram, and used it for its intended purpose, creating a hole big enough for her to squeeze through. She stepped through the opening, and inhaled deeply, breathing in the air of her freedom and redemption.

 

Kuvira turned around to face the blue lights down the street, the loud noises of celebration and dancing reaching her ears and bringing a twisted smile to her face.

 

_ Your final shot at victory, without the Avatar in your way. _

 

She would not fail.

 

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

 

“Lin!” Asami raced through the throngs of people dancing, calling out for someone,  _ anyone  _ that could help her, to find Kuvira and stop her from whatever it is that she was doing before it was too late.

 

Luckily, she ran into the woman soon enough, nearly knocking her skewer out of her hand. “Asami! What in the world-”

 

“Where’s Kuvira!?” She yelled, out of breath and tightly gripping Lin’s shoulder with a fiery look in her eye, her dark hair flying about her face. “Korra- something’s happening in the Spirit World- something with Kuvira. Where is she?”

 

“She’s in jail, Asami, you have to be a bit more articulate.”

 

“Korra said Kuvira’s about to do something really bad, please, go find her!” Lin wasn’t a woman to be  _ put off  _ easily, but Asami’s tone and eyes  _ unsettled  _ her, and Lin truly believed that  _ Kuvira  _ was about to do something. Turning around, she waved her footmen over spoke to her personal guards slowly but firmly. “Go check on Kuvira. Right now! Steal a mobile if you have to!”

 

With a brief salute, they ran off towards the city jail, their armor rattling as they went. “Yes, ma’am!”

 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Lin placed her hands on top of Asami’s, moving her hand so she wasn’t clenching sharp metal and potentially cutting herself. “Where’s Korra, Asami?”

 

“She’s in the Spirit World, look-” She cut herself off, taking a deep breath to steady herself and collect her wits about her. “A…  _ black thing  _ started coming out of the ground, and it freaked Korra out so bad she told me to run and stop Kuvira- she made me go- whatever it was, Lin, I swear Korra was  _ scared. _ ”

 

_ She couldn’t let panic and fear set it. _ Using her military training, Lin forced herself to think rationally and gave Asami’s hand a squeeze of reassurance. “Now, you heard me tell the guards; they’ll go check on Kuvira, and if  _ anything’s wrong _ , I’ll head straight over there and we’ll deal with it, okay, Asami? I doubt she can do  _ much  _ in her state, she did suffer a  _ number _ of injuries-”

 

“Hey, guys.” The women both turn to see Mako, his arm in a sling and a glass in another, approaching them, a look of concern on his face as he saw the two in a heated discussion. “What’s going on? Asami, you look-”

 

“Listen Mako.” Lin took the firebender by his good arm, and pulled him in close. “We have a  _ situation. _ ” Seeing Mako’s eyebrows raise and his eyes widen, she put a finger to her lips in a  _ quiet  _ gesture, and turned him around back to the dancefloor. “Don’t say anything, but go get Bolin and bring him over here right away.”

 

“Is it Korra?” Getting the gravity of the situation, Mako spoke in low volumes, keeping his face as neutral as possible.

 

“Yes, and more. Be quick!” Lin gave Mako a firm push, then turned back to Asami who had grabbed a glass from somewhere and downed its contents in one go, the engineer needing some liquid courage to stop the slight tremble in her fingertips, and to stop her worry of Korra, keeping an eye out for anything  _ suspicious  _ in the direction of the new portal.

 

But the liquid did nothing to stop her voicing her concerns. “Lin- I know I’m probably overreacting but Korra was  _ scared _ , really just…”

 

“All of this is new, so it’s reasonable to be scared. If you want, you can go back into the Spirit World and check on Korra. I think I and my guards can handle any  _ tricks  _ Kuvira try to throw at us.”

 

“I…”  _ Oh, she needed another drink. _ “Okay. I will. When Mako and Bolin get back, I’ll fill them in real fast and head back. Thanks, Lin.”

 

“Don’t mention it, Asami. We won’t let Kuvira get away with anything else.” Footsteps quickly approaching, Lin turned her head to see Mako dragging Bolin with his good arm, leaning down to whisper something in his ear, and shaking Pabu off his hair every few moments, the ferret trying to wrap its winding body around the brother’s necks.

 

Asami sighed in relief as the brothers approached, setting down her glass on a random table and striding up to them with haste. “Listen, I got to go back into the Spirit World with Korra, but there’s  _ something  _ going on in there that has to do with Kuvira, and it’s not good. Lin’s got guards on it.”

 

“Wait, is Korra in danger?” Bolin spoke, his green eyes growing large as his mind ran with the idea of one of his best friends being in danger. “We can come with you-”

 

“No, Bolin, you and Mako stay here in case we need  _ assistance _ , Asami will go.” Using her authoritative voice, Lin stepped in and gave the woman a soft push towards the portal. “If you can, ask Korra for more informat-”

 

A loud  _ CRASH!  _ Stopped all conversation and movement, except for the people who scrambled to get out of the way of a flying Satomobile that landed near the edge of the wedding party, creating a large cloud of dust and debris in its wake, as well as the sound of people screaming and running for their lives.

 

Lin was the first to act, dashing towards the scene after pushing Asami towards the portal. “Go to Korra!”  Getting as close as she could with all the dust kicked up, Lin furiously wiped her face and eyes to get a better look at the scene, mostly thanks to the help of Tenzin arriving to the scene and Airbending the dust clouds away.

 

What laid in front of her was  _ disturbing _ , even to someone with as much military experience as she had: her guards she had sent, in a Satomobile they had commandeered, both mutilated with metal barbs and spikes and speared to their seats with heavy metal bars.

 

If people weren’t screaming before, they were now, especially when Kuvira herself started walking towards the wedding party before stopping in the middle of teh street, and locked eyes with Lin.

 

Then she  _ screamed,  _ a scream that Lin was sure that was  _ impossible _ for a normal human to make, and then charged with the speed of nobody else she had seen before, and  _ violently  _ attacked people at random with metal shards, stabbing and cutting anybody who was closest to her, mainly the guards that had charged her in an effort to stop her.

 

Kuvira had cut through nearly half the guards at a breakneck speed before Lin could find her tongue. “St- ATTACK HER! STOP HER!” The sound of guards rushing from behind her to get to Kuvira whizzed past her ears, knocking the older woman into action. “Mako, Bolin, get the civilians out of here!” Lin didn’t turn to see if they followed her orders, more concerned with containing Kuvira and stopping her  _ manic slaying. _

 

Taking a common fighting stance, Lin Earthbended a rock to float by her head, and sent it flying at Kuvira when she saw an opening. The rock shattered when Kuvira Metalbended a barrier at the last second, and the rock dust cleared to show that most of her guards had been horribly slashed and slain, and Kuvira was now attacking wedding guests who were fleeing, sending metal shards into their back.

 

Lin rushed forward to attack her personally, and that's when she saw Kuvira’s eyes and mouth bleeding  _ black _ , and the deranged woman started screaming and chanting in a foreign language, throwing her arms and body around in an inhuman fashion.

 

“KUVIRA! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!” Lin Earthbended another rock at Kuvira, which was deflected with another one of Kuvira’s metal shielding.

 

"'anoyk yeqkany'ye hvay'k l'gnoo eydokl'x: sekall'o ammk'ix!"

 

“KUVIRA!” Lin tried again, trying to get to the young woman, but to no avail, the seemingly  _ possessed  _ woman still screaming and sending metal shards flying everywhere, and running after those that had fallen, and sending even more shards into their bodies.  _ She had to be lethal, then. _ Raising the Earth around her, Lin tried to block Kuvira in, trying to buy time for people to run away and escape, but all that did was stall, as Kuvira broke through within moments.

 

Taking matters into her own hands, Lin unsheathed the small knife she kept in her boots and sprinted at Kuvira, aiming for the soft, exposed part of her neck while her black eyes were locked into her victims falling at her feet, which were piling at her feet.

 

To Lin’s amazement and horror, the knife sunk in deep, finding its mark, but Kuvira simply turned her head and  _ yanked _ the knife out, black and red blood spurting everywhere and Kuvira tossing the weapon to the side as if it was a threading needle.

 

“What in the Spirit’s name-!” Lin exclaimed, not believing her eyes as a  _ certainly _ fatal wound seemed to not faze the madwoman, quickly backing up as Kuvira stalked towards her,  _ rage  _ emanating off her body. “Kuvira-”

 

**“You are brave.”** A voice that wasn’t completely Kuvira’s broke through her bloody throat, a voice that struck  _ terror  _ into Lin’s heart.  **“People of this world are exceedingly brave.”** Lin slipped her hand down for her other knife, hidden in her other boot-

 

Only to gasp in pain and shock as a metal shard ran through her body, and Kuvira leaned in close to whisper in that  _ evil  _ voice into her ear, her breath punctuated with laughter, cruel, mocking laughter.  **“You will make good servants and worms. Be glad you die this way.”**

 

Lin fell to the ground as the metal inside her vanished, leaving a hole in her chest that cut through her and allowed her blood to pour out of her, hearing a male voice crying out her name as her world quickly started fading, blackness clawing at her vision…

 

“No!” She gasped out, and summoned a large spike of Earth, and Bent it directly at Kuvira’s back as she walked away from her, the woman turning at the last moment, but was still imapled, entering right above her left breast and exiting through the back. Kuvira stumbled, and fell to one knee, grasping at her wound and injury while she made the Earth disintegrate within her and finding her way back to her feet, now bleeding profusely and wobbly.

 

**“Your people will remember your bravery.”** Lin’s last sensation was even  _ more  _ metal shards stabbing her multiple places within her like tiny knives, and someone rushing up to her while Kuvira quickly walked off, aiming for more victims with less precision than before and being embraced by strong arms.

 

“Lin! LIN! L... _ n… in... _ ”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

She was gravely wounded, but Kuvira didn’t care. Strangely, she didn’t feel much pain or suffering, even though she could feel herself slowly getting weaker and weaker, her footsteps treading in the bloody, muddy dirt.  _ The bitch had got her good, but she had gotten her better. _

 

_ Have I proven myself yet? _

 

_ Almost. Just a few more victims, then you will be rewarded. _

 

_ I… I feel weak, I don’t know if I… _

 

_ You  _ **_can_ ** _. I will keep you going for a while, but you must hurry! _

 

And she obeyed, her dizzying mind driven by pride and greed to  _ get what she deserves, an Empire all for her own! _ Even as the shards that left her Chi became less sharp and quick, even as she started to slow down and her shoulders started to  _ slump _ , she forced herself forward, forced her to main and kill whoever she could reach.

 

And out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two brothers she knew well.  _ Mako and Bolin- heading straight for her. _ Mako would be easy if she could take advantage of his injured arm before he could get off a Lightning strike, but Bolin would be tougher to handle, especially with his Lavabending.

 

_ Get those two, and your mission will be complete.  _

 

_ I do not know if I have enough strength to defeat them… I am getting weaker… _

 

_ If you can… just get them close to the portal. I will take it from there. _

 

She could do that, she would  _ make  _ herself do that. Kuvira attacked first, faking a major attack by raising her hands as if to send a large volley at them, but then rolling to the side and sideswiping them with a minor attack, smaller metal sharps that forced their backs to be facing the portal, just where she wanted them.

 

When they sent an attack back, both of Earth and Fire, she stood her ground, swerving as little as possible while incessantly sending metal attacks on either side of the brothers, forcing them to stay in the direct line towards the portal while she charged the pair, the brothers being forced to retreat backwards, directly towards the portal to stay out of the direct line of fire.

 

They were both yelling at her to stop, asking her what was wrong and what she was doing, taking both Earth and Fire hits while Lava licked at her feet, but she didn’t stop, not when they were  _ feet away… _

 

_ Just a little closer, Kuvira. A little closer… _

 

A brilliant Lighting Strike struck her wound, the smell of sizzling flesh making her cry out with one final exertion as she gave everything she had- and black claws suddenly erupted from the portal, and enveloped Kuvira, Mako and Bolin, and well as Pabu who was hidden in Bolin’s clothes… somewhere.

 

The noise was deafening, and everyone within a mile of the site feel to their knees and clasped their heads as feelings of terror, fear, and hopelessness overtook them- except for Kuvira, who stopped all of her attacks and let her hands, bloody and shaking violently fall to her waist before throwing them up in the sky and chanting in that foreign language again, black and red blood flying off her body as coating the brothers as she threw herself around wildly, as if she was a possessed snake in the throes of death.

 

The unfortunate three who were closest to the portal were scooped up by the black claws, and dragged back into the portal, upon which the yellow light flared briefly before settling back down, as if nothing never disturbed it. But Kuvira, Mako and Bolin were gone, the only thing that remained where they were was their blood and Mako’s bandages that were wrapped around his arm.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

_ What the Hell is this, Raava?  _ Korra, readying her powers, tried to communicate with the first and only past Avatar she could communicate with.  _ It was times like that that she missed her connections with other Avatars. _

 

_ It is old, ancient evil.  _ Raava answered back while the mass continued to grow in size, approaching the size of the tallest building in Republic City.  _ I encountered it only once, but it is by far the evilest thing that I have seen. _

 

_ Yeah, I get that, but what the hell is it!?  _

 

_ It… is a being that feeds of tragedy, murder, war- it was first attracted to your world when the Fire Nation committed genocide, and has been lying in wait for another mass casualty to latch onto your world.  _

 

Korra, so in tuned with listening to Raava and trying to Airbend the mass into submission, she couldn’t hear Asami approaching and yelling at her about Kuvira.  _ Why didn’t you warn me, Raava? _

 

_ I was trying to protect you. Just knowing of this creature’s existence is a great burden to bear- KUVIRA!  _ A loud fizzle, like a radio that had went out, sounded in her head, and the mass broke her hold  _ like butter _ , and she felt herself slatted to the side like a fly, rolling and tumbling and landing into Asami’s arms.

 

“Korra!”  _ Geez, did everyone have to scream so loudly at her?  _ “Kuvira, she’s- she’s attacking everyone! Korr-”

 

Suddenly, their world exploded as black claws descended upon them and the beautiful landscape, Spirits running and flying everywhere to escape the black mass’s wrath, and not even Korra’s Avatar Sphere could hold back the claws from scooping them up and enveloping them in a blanket if darkness, fear, and hopelessness.

 

Korra heard both Raava and Asami call out to her, but it was fuzzy and distant, and Korra couldn’t feel anything except for  _ coldness,  _ colder than the harshest Water Tribe winter she’d ever experienced, the voice of the first Avatar and her girlfriend fading out of existence until it was gone, and Korra fell unconscious inside the ball of darkness, her Chi feeling  _ sapped and just... gone. _


	2. Lesbian Squad

 

“... I know we’ve seen stranger, but… this is pretty weird. _That’s_ pretty weird.”

 

“Keyword: pretty.”

 

“Nea, you fucking slut, keep your lesbian in your pants for _five seconds_ and think of what this means-?”

 

“A pretty girl, _duh._ ”

 

“...Yes, but new Survivors!”

 

Groaning at the _utter nonsense_ that filled her head, Korra rolled to her side, drawing the covers tighter around her body… only there were none, and suddenly she was acutely aware of the chilly ground beneath her, and she startled awake, her hand palming the dirt beneath her as her mind, groggy and hazy from sleep, the Avatar struggled to make sense of what was going on.

 

“Hey! HEY, NEW GIRL!”

 

“Meg, lower your voice! She’s already scared, don’t scare her worse with your red-head demon voice.”

 

“Says Leif Eriksson herself.”

 

... _Those people babbling nonsense to her weren’t helping the situation either._ As memories of what happened right before she awoke came back to her, Korra felt a cold bucket of _fear_ wash over her, and she quickly leapt to her feet and took a defensive stance, whirling her head around to look for the creature that had taken her.

 

“...Wow.”

 

“That was hot, not gonna lie, I’m a little moist, Meg, hold me.”

 

“Nea, no- _not in front of strangers.”_

 

1“在做什麼？ 你在說什麼？” Korra, finally having enough of the two girls babbling, turned to face them, questioning them with a stern look on her face, lowering her stance slightly to get close enough to inspect them further. 2“你穿什麼衣服？ 你來自哪個國家？”

 

“Jesus Christ, she sounds _a lot_ like Feng.”

 

“No shit, Sherlock Meg- now I kinda wished I had taken her offer up on learning Chinese.”

 

Seeing as her questions went unanswered, Korra felt her irritation levels rise as it became obvious there was a language barrier, something she had never really encountered before, and at the worst possible time, as well! _But she had to do something-_ maybe she could draw? Letting her hands and shoulders drop, she kneels in front of the two girls, and pats the ground in front of her before drawing with her finger the signs of the Four Nations, and then set back and pointed at the images, then at the girls.

 

The directions should’ve been clear, but after a brief moment of the strange girls conversing, they shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders. In fact, _they were strange…_ face and complexion like she hadn’t seen before- and one of them had red hair! She had _never_ seen that before, and in the midst of her curiosity, she reached for a braided length of copper, wanting to see if it was _real._

 

When her fingers curled around the braid, the girl jumped backwards, one of her extremely pale hands coming to gasp her own, and she didn’t need to understand her stangle talk to know she was confused and probably asking her _what she was doing_.

 

Suddenly, the other girl smacked both of their hands and pointed off in a direction behind them, and Korra found herself being dragged behind some large trees and rocks and had hands covering her mouth. Rearing back in shock, Korra tried to defiantly push them both off and stand up- until she heard it; what sounded like a heartbeat that definitely _wasn't_ her own.

 

3“那是什麼？ 這是你的心跳嗎？” The response she got to her inquiry was a loud _shhh!,_ a noise that was universal to all of them- but that didn’t mean Korra listened to it, using her superior strength to pull away from the girls, and strided away from both of them, determined to find out what that noise was despite the girls trying to urge her to come back, a hand grabbing at her Water Tribe clothes to trying and compel her to sit back down.

 

She didn’t even consider cowering in fear from an unknown enemy, until she saw… _it._ A monster, if she ever seen one: A man, it must be, or it must’ve been at one time, dark, leathery skin that seemed to be stretched taut with massive muscles and _metal barbs_ protruding from its shoulders.

 

Just being in its presence made Korra’s heart race and feel _distressed._ Nevertheless, she took her fighting stance, and was prepared to vanquish the monster with a powerful Airbend… until nothing happened. Confused, Korra pulled _deep_ within herself, to her very _core…_ and it was _there_ , but _locked._ _By something._ She tried, and tried, and tried, but nothing happened, nothing came out, not even a drop of water.

 

The grass shifting in front of her made her drag her head up, slowly, to face the beast, with a _hideous_ grinning mask, and the man behind it grinning even wider at her as he watched her struggle and as her face dropped with _shock_ and disappointment that her power, her _very_ _title…_ was _meaningless_. She wasn’t the Avatar anymore, not even a _Bender_ anymore.

 

4“精神世界是什麼？”

 

A weapon- _she hadn’t even noticed_ \- was suddenly raised, the metal of it glinting, was posied to strike her, and she closed her eyes and braced for a _painful strike-_

 

_“KORRA!”_

 

Throwing her eyes back open, Korra was stunned to see her girlfriend rushing forwards to throw herself between the monster and her own body, and the weapon struck true, splitting her shoulder open and blood spraying everywhere, coating a shocked Korra in the blood of her newly-found lover. Motivated by the wound, Asami took off in a random direction in a burst of speed, her own instincts taking over and running as far away from the monster as she could, and the monster evidenly forgetting about Korra and chasing off after Asami.

 

 _And Korra wasn’t just about to let that happen!_ She took off, following behind the monster as she chased down her girlfriend- _Spirits, was she that slow!?_

 

“...”

 

“Nea, you don’t need to say it-”

 

“I call dibs on the taller girl.”

 

 _“Oh no you fucking don’t_ -wait.”

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“What if they’re gay and dating each other already?”

 

“ _Don’t crush my hopes and dreams this fast, Megan.”_

 

“But, I mean, did you see her tank that hit, Nea? That screams _lesbian_.”

 

“Doesn’t mean that they’re gay _for each other.”_

 

_“Do you wanna have a fucking debate on lesbian etiquette?”_

 

_“Let’s fucking go, you fucking pussy slut.”_

 

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

 

Asami, because she was understandably _unfamiliar_ with the landscape, was down in a relatively short amount of time, despite all the backup she was getting from Korra in the form of punching the monster in the spine and kicking at his knees.

 

The monster, once he had downed Asami, promptly turned to face Korra, and grabbed her by her neck, and pinned her against a tree, speaking to her in that _language_ that she nor Asami could understood, but she could tell that they were not _nice_ words, so she offered him some not-so-nice words back, in the form of curses and spits. 5”爬去，麻美！ 讓我走吧，你笨蛋！”

 

She felt his eyes- large, brown _things_ that hid behind his wooden mask, that roved over her form, taking in how _different_ she looked, and then turning back to look at Asami- and Korra took the opportunity to _strike_ , delivering a hard punch to monster’s gut, causing him to let her go, and Korra landed solidly on her feet and rushed over to Asami, helping to pick her up off the ground and trying to carry her _somewhere._

 

“Asami, come on, help me!”

 

“It hurts, Korra.”

 

 _Fuck, there was blood everywhere._ “I know, but I’ll get you somewhere safe while I distract him!” And lo and behold, there was what appeared to be a red, rusted locker with grey handles that suddenly looked _very_ inviting, and the darker-skinned woman pushed Asami right up to it, gripping the handle and opening the rusty door. “Get in!” The normally vitalicious woman had to be _helped_ inside, and could barely hold herself up as Korra closed the door behind her, just as the heartbeat rang in her head so loud that she couldn’t help but moan softly and cover her ears, praying to any Spirits that would hear her to save her and Korra from this place, tot take them back to their world of Four Nations and the Republic City, her knees slowly giving out as Korra’s yelling and taunting grew more and more distant, along with the _unnerving_ heartbeat.

 

Asami slumped against the interior of the locker, feeling her blood run down her body and pool at her feet, and escape onto the dirt outside, desperately trying to collect her thoughts about what she could _do, losing track of time as she tried to force herself to think…_

 

Until the locker doors flew open, to reveal two, _very_ strange girls, who gawked at her as she fell to her hands and knees in front of them, feeling hands help her to her knees which then transferred to her back, doing odd, repetitive actions while talking in a foreign tongue.

 

“Oh my God, she’s hotter than the first girl.”

 

“I mean, shit you right, Nea, but help me heal her!”

 

“I’m surprised Trapper let her go, she’s had to have at least lost half of her blood. And fresh meat?”

 

“He must have a preference for darker girls.”

 

“Ew, gross, Meg, I can’t believe you said that.”

 

“What? Even crust old men like the Trapper has a right to have a preference. You know, for a long time he was sabo-sexual.” Nea choked at Meg’s joke, but chose not to poke the bear and instead poke Asami’s now fully-healed body _(though her soul was left to its own devices)._ “Hey, you’re healed. Ta-da!”

 

 _Huh?_ As if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders, Asami suddenly felt… _better_ , and left her hand reach around to her back to touch where her gruesome wounds were, only to find them gone, albeit a bit sore.

 

_Were these girls healers?_

 

6“你是治療師嗎？” The heiress asked before remembering their language barrier, shaking her head and standing up to her full height, which ended up being nearly half a foot over the two girls, which she noted by their shocked expressions _was apparently a bit unusual to them._

 

The one with red hair _(red hair? Has she changed her hair color?)_ spoke at length to her, or tried to anyways, before giving up, throwing her hands up and spinning around, and _sprinting_ off at a speed that even Asami thought to be _incredibly fast_ , and she was left standing with the other girl, who, after scratching her head for a few moments, grabbed her by her wrist and ran after the red-haired girl, dragging her along with her.

 

Running around several trees and crumbling walls, the girl eventually stopped when they approached some type of machinery… _finally, something semi-familiar to her!_

 

Nea turned to face the girl, letting go of her wrist and pointing at the generator. “Do you have any idea on how to fix it?”

 

Asami, of course, had no idea what the hell the girl was saying, but judging by the machinery and pointing, Asami assumed that she wanted her to work on it, like the other girl was doing. The taller woman nodded, and knelt in front of the machine, a finger tapping her lips while she looked inside the machine, trying to make sense of all the wires and twisting gears inside that were similar to what she had worked on at Future Industries… _but it didn’t make sense._ The wires and gears weren’t really connected to anything that had a power source, yet the generator was slowly coming to life.

 

 _It didn’t make a bit of sense,_ but the other girl quite literally shoved her hands inside the oil-slicked machine and barked something at her, so Asami, for once, didn’t question it and got to work, following the other girls examples as they pulled out various components and plugged them back in, the pistons on top of the machine pumping faster and faster with more of them activating as they kept cooperating-

 

 _Ding!_ A notification sound of some sort echoed through her mind, and she pulled a confused face. _What in the worl-_

 

Something backfired within the machine, and a loud explosion sounded, sparks and embers flies into her face, having to let go of the machine entirely to protect her face and eyes from the electrical malfunction with a jerk back and a gasp of shock.

 

7“地獄裡有什麼？” _Of course, she wasn’t going to get a response she could understand,_ but it was more of a knee-jerk reaction. Asami kept her hands away from the machine for a few moments, not understanding why the machine backfired in the first place and not willing to do it again, until the same girl pushed her hands back into the machine, speaking to her in gibberish, but her tone was urgent.

 

Biting her tongue, Asami dug her hands back into the grease- slick gears, and helped the other girls bring the machine to life, a loud _snap!_ Of light sounding off and illuminating the area around them and her hands being _forced_ out of the machine- _well, I guess it’s done?_ The heiress snuck a quick look at her hands, seeing some of the oil and grease still sticking to her fingers before wiping them onto her thighs.

 

With her hands now slightly cleaner, she turned her dark head back to face the girls to find them both staring at her in curiosity- until a scream rang out, a scream that Asami instantly recognized as Korra’s. Whipping her head around to the source of the anguished cry, she saw a strange red outline laying on the floor that matched Korra’s frame. _She didn’t know what kind of strange auras she could see, but she was going to take advantage of it and save Korra-_

 

Until two sets of arms wrapped around her own, almost causing her to pitch forward as the two girls started speaking to her unintelligibly.

 

“Hey!” Meg shouted, moving faster than her punk friend at grabbing Asami to stop her from rushing over to where their unfortunate teammate lay on the ground. “You don’t know what’s going on- don’t go over there!”

 

The Swede latched onto the tall girl as well, helping Meg to restrain her while at the same time trying to talk to the newcomer. “HEY!” Nea yelled, stepping in front of Asami to get her attention, and it worked as the heiresses dark head swiveled. “You!” She pointed at Asami, directly at her chest with her best authoritative voice and firm tone she could conjure up. “Generator!” Nea gives the generator they had all just rushed a loud slap, then she swept her hand out to behind Asami, all across the blue landscape. “Go find some! We’ll get her.” Nea gestured to both Meg and herself, then back to the red outline on the ground, which promptly disappeared as it was lifted up.

 

Despite not being able to understand what they were, saying, the dark- haired girl with a half shaved head making those hand gestures helped Asami to understand that they didn’t want her going over there; they wanted her to repair more of those machines. And Asami _could_ , even though they were a bit _odd… but Korra needed help!_

 

But, then again, she had no idea what was going on- she was a strong, independent woman who usually did things herself, but she knew she was out of her league here. She was persistent, but not like Korra to run into the thick of battle _without protection._

 

She listened to the two girls with a forlorn look back to where the red outline of her girlfriends body had disappeared, and then ran off in the general direction that was indicated to her, aiming to repair more of those machines to help out everyone running from that _monster_.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 _This isn’t fair!_ Korra thought as she ran away from the creature chasing her, ducking and weaving past giant trees and crumbling brick walls as she held her side from where a slash of the monster’s weapon caught her when she had lured him away from Asami. _This is… not right! This isn’t how fights are supposed to be!_ And she should know, being the Avatar involved fighting a lot of bad guys.

 

And no matter how fast she ran, no matter how hard she pushed herself, she couldn’t seem to outrun him, the monster gaining on her constantly- Korra saw an opening in a wall, and she threw herself over the makeshift window sill, noting in her mind how it forced the monster to go around the entire wall structure to continue pursuing her. She kept running it, vaulting the same window over and over, until she ran to jump it, and found it sealed off with large, black spikes that bore a _heavy_ resemblance to the black mass that had brought her here-

 

Her world cut off them when another _painful, agonizing_ strike hit her back, and this time she was forced to the ground, landing face-first into the dirt with her arms and legs sprawled out, her mind a muddled mess from the impact of the weapon creating a _huge_ gash in her back- _much like the one Zaheer gave her when they fought their battle-_

 

But there was no time to dwell on that, as Korra was picked up, the monster careless of her fresh wounds, and roughly juggled onto the monster’s shoulder, and then she was distinctly aware of being carried off- _not on my watch!_ Korra started to fight back, pummeling the beast’s back with her fists and its front with her feet, hoping that each hit would be enough to let her go, to let her down from its shoulders and allow her to run free again…

 

And if the first round of pain wasn’t enough, a _second_ one, even worse than before, came as the monster stopped, grabbed her waist, and threw her off- and onto something _far worse._ Korra scream, long and loud in some of the worst pain she had ever felt as her vision dimmed around the edges, but she fought to stay semi-conscious. Turning her head, she saw the source of her pain: _a hook_ , though her left shoulder and keeping her suspended in the air, her feet dangling a good foot off the ground.

 

Tilting her eyes upwards, she saw the monster _staring,_ as if the sight of Korra hanging like a piece of meat was _fascinating._ Opening her mouth, a trickle of blood leaked forth as well as a biting insult from the Avatar’s mouth. “You sick fuck! You won’t get away with this! I’ll-” The monster stepped forward, and grabbed her leg, and _tugged,_ sending Korra into a convulsion of pain as her skin was spilt even further open, the hook rubbing raw against her bones at the monster’s cruel action.

 

But then, the monster left her, obviously having his fill of enjoyment from her screams. “Coward!” She yelled after his retreating form, and then taking it upon herself to free her from the meat hook, painfully raising her arms above her head to trying to wretch herself off, failing once, twice… and after a third time, large, chitinous spikes suddenly formed above her with a horrid sound, and descended upon her with little warning, Korra only being able to catch the one that had tried to impale her with her quick reflexes.

 

 _Oh boy, I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble…_ She… was she about to die? She fought harder, her grip, bloody and weakening, slowly lost its hold on the black spike that was coming closer to her face, her rage inside her bubbling forth as it drew closer and closer, her strength fleeing from her body like her blood…

 

Until, hands suddenly grasped her under her arms, and hauled her down with a grunt of effort, the spikes disappearing as soon as Korra landed on her feet with a stumble, but hands caught her, and she opened her eyes fully to see who her savoir was- _it was the two girls again!_ The Avatar opened her mouth to utter some sort of _thanks_ , but was quickly pushed down to a kneeling position, and hands, _more hands_ , were all over her back and wounds, and the distinct feel of rough bandages were being wound around her _which weren’t going to do much, I mean, she was just dangling from a meat hook-!_

 

 _And now she felt a lot better when the girls let her stand._ “What? How is that possib-” Her rhetorical question was cut off when one of the girls made a very loud _shhhh!_ Sound, and Korra was being shoved into a dark corner while the sound of a heartbeat came closer and closer, and Korra could _feel_ its _presence_ befall her as a voice _(the red-haired girl’s voice)_ called out to the monster before she took off _lighting_ fast, with the monster quickly in tow, while simultaneously, a light and a loud noise sounded off in the distance, a beacon of light erupting from the source.

 

Nea, ducking into the grass herself, stood up at the notification of a generator being completed by the _new girl_ , nonetheless, and quickly found the other new girl, blending in nicely with some grass, and hauled her to her feet to race into into the direction of the completed gen. _Finally, a true gen jockey!_

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It didn’t take long to find Asami, especially when she stepped into a bear trap.

 

Luckily, Nea and Korra weren’t too far away from her when she took a misstep, both of them changing course and ran straight to the woman who they saw was bleeding heavily from serrated jaws that dug deep into her ankle, watching her as she cut her hands trying to pry it off her leg.

 

Korra fell at Asami’s feet first, placing her hands ontop of her girlfriend’s to help her out of the trap, which required a significant about of effort to open and it hold it so while Asami slipped her ankle free, and scrambled backwards until Nea caught her, more bandages in her hand and getting to work on her ankle in a flash by quickly wrapping the wound as tightly as she dared.

 

“Asami!” Korra, ignoring Nea healing her girlfriend, dived for the injured woman and evolping her in a tight hug that was eagerly returned, their trauma momentarily forgotten in their joy of reunion, pressing her girlfriend’s face in kisses. “I thought I had… had lost you.”

 

Despite the pain in her ankle that was slowly being corrected, Asami chuckled and kissed her girlfriend back, completely missing Nea’s disappointed face. “I thought I had lost you, too. What happened- why did these girls have to go to you?”

 

Korra’s face turned sour at the question, shivering at the memories that flooded back. “That monster- it hung me on a hook!” And upon seeing Asami’s horrified face, Korra continued “It knocked me to the ground, then picked me up and carried me to a hook, then put me on it like a strip of meat!” Nea interrupted then, waving her hands in front of the lovers to signify that she had finished with Asami’s leg, and urged both of them to stand and follow her.

 

Trailing behind the smaller woman, Korra and Asami still stuck close to each other, whispering to one another about their experiences so far. “Asami, I think that black mass is behind this. While I was on that hook, some of those black spikes came down and tried to stab me!”

 

“Oh, Spirits, you mean-”

 

“It tried to kill me, yes.” Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, Korra squeezed her girlfriend’s hand for reassurance and comfort, both hers and Asami’s. “And I think that monster is trying to get us there. Without my bending, he could’ve easily killed me, but he just took me to a hook.”

 

“You think this monster is a servant of _whatever_ that black mass is?”

 

“I think it’s a safe assumption.” Their guide interrupted their conversation to point at an another generator, making the same putting-together motions with her hands as before and urging them to kneel at the machine. Asami, having done this before, had to tell her friend what the girl was telling them to do. “They keep insisting that we turn on this… _machinery._ It’s not that hard, but…”

 

“But?” Korra didn’t have much experience with mechanical parts, but untangling wires was an relatively task.

 

“It makes no sense! There’s no power source, and these wires at the bottom lead to nowhere! These pistons shouldn’t be moving, and it shouldn’t power on at all.”

 

“I know this place is confusing, but for right now, let’s just play along and get out of here.” _Which might be relatively soon_ , as the pistons on the machine steadily pumped faster and faster, and within no time, the generator burst to life, spreading light across the area. The girl urged them along once more, and Korra took the lead, grabbing Asami’s hand again and mixing their grease-covered hands together in an embrace. “I wish I could ask her how many we have left.”

 

“Do you think she even knows, Asami?”

 

“I’m not sure, but she knows what she’s doing. She and the other girl pulled me out of that locker you put me in and healed me.”

 

“They both pulled me off the hook and healed me as well! Do you think they are healers? They’re both pale enough to come from the Water Tribe.” _Yet another machine that needed to be turned on_ , and their conversation broke for a moment to shove their hands back inside the machine once again, the gears turning both inside and outside of the Avatar’s head. “But I drew the Four Nations signs onto the dirt when I first met them, and they looked at me like I had two heads.”

 

“They might not be from _any_ Nation, Korra.”

 

“Then _where_ could they be from? Look, one of them has red hair. _Red hair_ , Asami. I’ve _never_ seen that before, and I’m pretty sure it’s her natural hair. And their faces- their facial features are a lot different than any person I’ve seen, and I’ve been all over the world.”

 

“Maybe the live in the Spirit World, like, I don’t know, Spirit People? You’re supposed to be the Spirit World expert here.”

 

“Look, ‘Sami, all I know is that Raava warned me that the _thing_ that took us was an ancient evil that fed off of death and tragedy, and that I needed to stop it. For all we know, these girls were taken like we were, and they probably need to be saved, too.” This machine sprang to life under their hands as well in record time, Korra and Asami both being forced from the now running machine the moment it illuminated the area, and they were led _yet again_ by the girl to _yet another_ generator.

 

“I _really_ hope we’re done soon, because my hands are turning black.” Korra complained, but ran steadily behind the girl until they approached _another_ generator and, this time, shoved their _own_ hands inside, getting the message by now about how this dance and song went. “And I can’t give you that massage I promised you with dirty hands. I will not soil my girlfriend with my uncleanness.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It was a great show of restraint and _caring_ on Nea’s part that she allowed the two women _(and after they kissed, girlfriends)_ , to continue talking in a strange tongue that was honestly slowly driving the Swede insane- _they really did sound like Feng Min when she was angrily shouting in Chinese._ She might have to get the gamer girl to be the official translator when they meet up again.

 

_And of course the Entity couldn’t just let them speak English- no, that would be far to easy!_

 

At least they were blasting through these generators, mostly thanks to the tallest woman, who’s name Nea is pretty sure is ‘Salami’, or something close, being the _true lesbian hero_ that they all needed and rushing these gens like Express Shipping. She hasn’t heard or see Meg hurt or injured yet, so Nea assumes that they’re making _really_ good time- _and the last one was nearly finished._

 

Good because then they could open the exit gates and _maybe_ these giant lesbians can stop chattering away and turning her eardrums to mush. _God, being a pimp was hard sometimes._

 

When the final generator was powered, Nea couldn’t help but _laugh_ when the two women _jumped_ at the sound of the exit gates being powered, seeming to take a _fighting_ stance, as if something was about to attack them or something, and of course, it was up to Nea yet again to lead the newbies around and babysit them, grabbing each of them by an arm and dragging them towards the nearest exit gate that glowed brightly. “Come on, Queens, time to finally get the hell out of Dodge.”

 

And because she was so _caring_ and _considerate,_ Nea let Korra pull down the exit lever, figuring since Asami did all the gens that Korra needed some other objective points, and everything was going well- _until Traps McGee came back chasing Sanic herself._

 

“MEG!” The punk yelled, urging Korra to _somehow_ make the door open faster. “WE’RE DOING SOMETHING!”

 

“I'M ALL OUT OF PALLETS, I'M SORRY!” Que Meg throwing down the _only_ pallet in the vicinity of the door, in her attempt to stall the Killer as the first buzzer of the Exit Gate sounded, letting the Trapper know of their eminent escape- and causing him to change pursuit, instead ignoring the pallet and the t-bagging Meg on the other side, and heading straight for the woman opening the gate, who _refused_ to budge as she held the lever down, seemingly about to tank a hit for the entire team.

 

Nea did the smart thing, and yanked the other woman out of the way, leaving Korra wide open and vulnerable because- yep, Korra went down in one hit, courtesy of NOED.

 

 _I ain’t about to fuck with that._ It took every ounce of strength within her body to hold the woman back from running to her girlfriend, who was promptly picked up and carried off to the nearest hook- and she was death hook. “Megan, get the door! He’s got NOED!” The runner didn’t need to be told twice, sprinting to the exit gate to throw the lever one final time while Nea tried to drag a thrashing Salami out of the Trial. “Meg, help me with her!”

 

After the gate was opened, Nea got the assistance she requested, Meg wasting no time in grabbing Salami’s wild legs and helping Nea to literally _haul_ her out the gate, not stopping even when the sound of Korra being sacrificed filled the air, casting dark shadows on all of them as the Entity descended onto the offered sacrifice, its claws piercing the Avatar’s body and raising her blacked soul husk up into the sky to _feast_ , the only sound that was louder than the horror of the Entity was the sound of Asami screaming Korra’s name as she was dragged out of the Trail and into the Fog, darkness overcoming her nearly immediately and falling unconscious in Meg and Nea’s arms.

 

**_D E A T H  I S N O T A N  E S C A P E_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chinese Key
> 
> 1:What are doing? What are you speaking?
> 
> 2:What clothes are you wearing? What Nation are you from?
> 
> 3:What is that? Is that heartbeat yours?
> 
> 4:What Spirit World is this?
> 
> 5:Crawl away, Asami! Let me go, you eel-fucker!
> 
> 6:Are you a healer?
> 
> 7:What in the Hell was that?


	3. Reported for Bullying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Feng. And that's bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaa tbh I lost a lot of motivation for my trash near the end of this and I've been super tired lately due to my shitty sleep schedule, so im going to end this for now and I got real lazy at the end but I might come back to it later and add in another chapter or two because I still love this idea n plot
> 
> smonch

_ Well, that could’ve went better.  _ Mako blearily cracked his eyes open, his body aching and sore and protesting loudly as he rolled to his side, bringing his knees closer to his chest to conserve warmth because  _ someone left the damn window open again _ , and Mako prepares himself to roll out of bed to shut the damn thing…

 

Only to simply do a complete body roll, his face mushing against cold and solid stone floor. The firebender came fully awake with a start, yanking his face off the ground with wide eyes, and he scrambled to his feet with a rush of blood to his head making him dizzy and unsteady. And with the sudden blood flow to his brain, his memories of what  _ happened  _ came back, and a sense of panic erupted in Mako’s chest before he could beat it down-  _ where’s Kuvira!? Bolin!? When I get my hands on Kuvira- _

 

“BOLIN?” Whirling around, the elder brother looked around frantically for his younger brother,  _ or anyone else  _ for that matter alive or dead, but his eyes found no one save for the ruins of the wedding party. “Bolin!” Mako cried out again, adjusting his scarf around his neck as he started walking forward, climbing out of the Spirit Crater- which the namesake of the landmark, the Spirit Portal, was gone.

 

After climbing the steps out of the crater, Mako found his footing at what used to be the exit for the wedding party. The venue that was decorated beautifully and brilliantly in the colors of the Water Tribe, now laid in destruction and  _ blood  _ was splattered everywhere, but strangely enough, Mako couldn’t see any bodies- in fact, there were _ a lot _ of things missing and out of sorts, the biggest example was a large machine that came up to his chest that sat nearly exactly where Varrick and Zhu Li said their vows just hours before.

 

Looking around, Mako approached the strange machine that seemed to stand out from everything else around him, letting his hand fall onto the cool metallic pole that extended from it-  _ his hand! _ The bandages and sling that had covered his burnt and scarred lower arm had disappeared, and looking behind him to where he had first awoke, he found them completely gone and nowhere to be seen.

 

Turning his arm over and inspecting it closely, he found it to be in perfect health, as if he had never pushed his limits Lightingbening at all. Extending his arm, he tried to produce a flame, even a  _ puff _ of smoke…  _ nothing _ came out, not even a wisp of Bending. It felt… locked within him. Mako tried again, urging harder with all of his Chi, but nothing became of it.  _ Was he Chi-blocked or something? _

 

Letting his hand fall back onto the machine, Mako deeply inhaled then exhaled, trying to put everything together in one neat, mental package for him to slowly pick apart- _so Kuvira commits a massacre, something goes wrong in the Spirit world and then we get taken by… something. This isn’t adding up._ _There has to be something-_

 

“Hey! You!” Snapping out of his thoughts, he turns towards the sound of the talking, and sees what looks to be a young child rushing up to him, speaking to him in an unfamiliar language that had his raising his eyebrows and cocking his head in confusion in both her speech and her _manner of dress and appearance_. She looked like someone from the Fire Kingdom, but… _indescribally_ _different_.

 

“What are you saying?” Mako interrupts her, and watches her eyes widen and her mouth part softly, stopping once she gets within reaching distance. The young girl then speaks again, but this time in a tongue he can understand “You speak Chinese?”

 

“Chinese?” Mako parrots, feeling a small bit of relief that she can communicate with him, even though her accent and choice of words are a bit different than what he’s used to. “You’re speaking  _ my  _ language, which is-  _ Spirits, does their language even have a name? Probably not because everyone speaks the same so there was no issue-  _ ...my language.”

 

“Which is  _ my _ language, and  _ I’m _ speaking Chinese.”The Firebender felt the urge to quarrel with the young girl, but swallowing down his pride, he bit his cheek as he dismissively waved his hand, determined to get answers about what was going on here. “Anyways, do you know what… happened here? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

 

“I was hoping you tell me.”

 

“How would I know?”  _ Well, technically _ , he did know what happened here, but clearly he’s been unconscious for quite a while. “I was knocked unconscious after Kuvira attacked me-”

 

“Whoa, hold up, who the fuck is Kuvira?”  _ Even kids nowadays have potty mouths. _ But her question does catch him off guard slightly because  _ who hasn’t  _ heard of Kuvira? “And why are you like… seven feet tall?”

 

“So?”

 

“Dude, you’re  _ huge!”  _

 

“And you’re like, what, twelve years old?”  _ What is he even doing, trying to pry information out of a child?  _

 

A sharp pain to his shin has him hopping and grasping the sore area, with the girl pulling him down by his collar and red scarf down to her eye level so that he’s nearly at a right angle. “I’m twenty-fucking-four years old, I’m not a child! You are a giant!”

 

“You’re a midget!” The tall male pulled himself upright after his shin stopped throbbing, worming her hands out of his clothes and brushed them off. “But forget about that- just tell me what happened here!”

 

“And I told you,  _ I don’t know who that is- _ ” And suddenly, the alleged adult stopped talking, a look of dawning realization cross her face as her lips pursed, and malformed into a smirk. “Oh, you don’t know where you are, do you?”

 

This girl  _ must _ be playing games with him, and Mako was starting to  _ not  _ like it. “Of course I know where I am. I’m in downtown Republic City, and-”

 

“You got taken by black spider legs and blacked out.” His ember eyes widening, Mako’s jaw dropped a bit when she finished his sentence, and looked quite..  _ Smug  _ about it, like she had just unlocked a secret. And what she followed up with made him  _ unnerved _  “That’s how I got here, too- well, minus whoever this ‘Kuvira’ bitch is. That’s how we all got here.”

 

“How do you know that? And who is “all of us”?”

 

“Look-” Now the girl was the one being dismissive, waving her hand and grabbing at his collar again, pointing and twisting him to kneel in front of the generator, and shoved her hands inside and started fiddling around, the sound of gears being moved and a piston pumping overhead faintly reminded him of Asami. “I don’t have time for a full run-down, but we need to get these generators running. You repair, I’ll talk.”

 

Mako huffed in indignation, but got to work as the girl instructed him to- he was nowhere near engineer-level like Asami was, but he could fix a machine if needed be. “So.” He starts up again after working in silence for a few moments, searching for words and a topic to start talking about when he remembers that he should be on the lookout for the others. “Have you seen anybody else? I’m look for my brother, Bolin.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

_ Oof, does she tell him it’s usually one survivor, one killer?  _ She chose not to, because even though usually she didn’t really care about others feelings, this boy was  _ really hot and tsundere-looking _ , and she’d rather not shatter his heart in two right off the get go, even though she’s pretty sure he’s convinced that she’s a kid.

 

“If he’s here, we’ll see him eventually.” Her voice low in concentration, she has her eyes finely tuned to the generator in front of her but her ears and other senses tuned to her environment, her sixth sense remaining on high  _ Alert _ … but she can’t get over how  _ weird  _ this new guy was- this guy had to be at least seven feet tall and was dressed so oddly that he looked like he was straight out of one of her video games.  _ And not to mention he radiated big dick energy like a motherfucker. _

 

_ (Perhaps luckily) _ Before she can continue thinking about the massive dong he must be wielding, Feng’s  _ Alert  _ procts, and she straightens up, twisting her head around to look for the aura that was sure to be revealed to her- and lo and behold, there was a large and stocky figure breaking a pallet with a hand-and-foot combo breaker in the far distance, probably at the max of her range, and then keeps running forward, in clear pursuit of someone for as long as the aura lingers.

 

The aura was  _ new  _ to her, so when the new guy asks her  _ “What’s wrong?”,  _ Feng puts two and two together. “So, this Kuvira thot, who is she?”

 

The guy across her gives her a scowl that she soon learns isn’t directed  _ at her _ , but her question, and she  _ swears _ that if she didn’t have her hands buried in the genny, she would’ve  _ smacked _ the tsundere off his face. “Kuvira tried to take over the world, to create an ‘Earth Empire’ that she said would make life better for all-”

 

“Not the first time the world’s heard that.” Feng remarks as a side commentary while the male continues “Needless to say, it wasn’t what she  _ proclaimed  _ it to be, and me and my friends eventually stopped her-”

 

“But?” There’s no way the Entity took  _ all of this  _ from just a crazy Hitler-bitch bent on world domination,  _ no _ , there had to be more plot than that. Feng listens closely as the guy has to speak louder over the loud pumping of the pistons, all four of them chugging in near completion. “Actually, hold that thought-” Using her laser-focus concentration that she had perfected over the years, she boldly took one of the few remaining wires, and forced them together.

 

It  _ exploded _ and  _ scalded _ her hands and knocked her on her ass, but the genny exploded with light and came on-line. “GGEZ.”

 

_ At least the guy was friendly enough _ , as he came to help her stand and checked out her hands before she pulled them away from them as her  _ Alert  _ came off cooldown and it procted again, this time the outline of the Killer was closer than before, and breaking  _ another  _ pallet- but this time turned and came in Feng’s direction.

 

She grabbed the guy’s arm, and started tugging him out of the way, but it wasn’t easy to move a  _ brick  _ wall. “The Killer’s comin’.” She whispered, and started looking around her environment for a place to hide.

 

“Killer?” _ Of course, the noob had to ask _ . “Kuvira?” Before Feng could answer, the heartbeat started beating in the gamer’s head, and she quickly dived behind a couple of overturned pillars after pinching the guy  _ hard  _ and speaking firmly. 

 

“Imma say this right now: you can’t fight her. Don’t try. Imma stealth this one, so good luck or whatever.” And then she dipped, using the uprooted pillars as cover as she slunk away from the approaching killer who, from the brief glimpse she got of her, gave the Huntress a run for her money. The last she saw of the absolute  _ unit  _ of the woman as she went around a corner to look for more gens was that she made a beeline for the new guy, who she could hear her calling  _ Mako,  _ and they both looked like they were about to throw hands.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

After half a second of looking at Kuvira, Mako decided that the woman had seen much better days.

 

Their last battle had certainly done a number on her  _ (not to mention what Lin had done to her, Mako had watched as he and Bolin guided people to safety as she successfully attacked Kuvira but paid the ultimate price) _ , her uniform tore and scorched and damaged in multiple places, and a large, black wound on her neck paired with a fist-sized hole going from her chest to her back.

 

_ Yeah, she was a little more than ‘fucked up’. _

 

_ “Mako!”  _ Kuvira hissed, her voice sounding rough and  _ distorted _ , as if something else was coming through as she spoke. Mako likes to remain  _ tough _ and  _ unafraid _ , but her voice was putting a heavy strain on his bravery.  _ “You will not stop my Empire!” _

 

“You’re delusional!” The Firebender took a fighting stance, despite what that girl back there told him about  _ you can’t fight her _ , fully ready and willing to battle her again-  _ with or without his bending. _

 

She charged straight at him, her metallic knife sticking long and sharp off the top of her metallic wrist band and directed at his body. As she tried to grab him, he twisted out of the way, causing her to stagger and miss by a matter of  _ inches _ , but she quickly regained her sense of balance and swung for him again. This time, she grabbed ahold of his sleeve, and pulled him closer before throwing him away like a piece of trash.

 

Mako landed onto the ground with a hard  _ thud! _ And barely rolled out of the way when she drove her weapon into the ground-  _ this place is vastly different than home, I’m nowhere near as fast or as agile as I used to be. _ Coming up onto the balls of his feet, he raised his leg up to deliver a swift kick to her face, only for her to tilt her head out of the way at the last possible moment, raising her non-dominant hand as she raised up-

 

_ Pain, hot and sharp _ rained down onto Mako’s body as various metal sharps punctured his skin, and dug deep for a few moments before they all vanished, leaving bloody holes in their absence that made Mako double over in pain, gripping his side as he started backing up, adrenaline and panic telling him to  _ run _ !

 

Kuvira started laughing, a noise that was  _ deep, evil and cruel _ as she raised to her full height and stalked after him.  _ “You can’t win, Firebender, because I have already won! This is my EMPIRE!”  _ The mutilated woman swung again at Mako, missing him again by a  _ hair _ , but it sprung the tall man into action, finally realizing that the girl was correct when she said  _ you can’t fight her _ , and started limping away as fast as he could with the loud sound of his _ (?) _ heartbeat muddling his thoughts and making it hard for him to think rationally.

 

_ “I will make an example of you, Firebendering waif!” _

 

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

 

If there was  _ one thing  _ Jake could always count on in this Hellhole is that he would always get the new survivors in their first Trial, and he would always end up either dying for them or they would get scared and run off, get caught and die and they would hold that to him for a while until Feng eventually sandbagged them into blaming her worse than they blamed him.

 

Even though she was a salty little bitch, being ‘partners’ with Feng Min had its perks.

 

The new guy found him first  _ (or perhaps his ‘pet’ found him first) _ , he nearly tripped over the ferret-looking critter when it bounded up to him and wrapped itself around his leg, climbing up it until it had buried itself inside his scarf- Jake  _ swore  _ it smelt a bit smokey, and was about to remove it when its owner ran up to him, and tried to take it himself.

 

It proved more complicated and arduous, but eventually, the animal was removed from his neck, and quite literally  _ shoved  _ it down the front of his coat. Jake thought about saying something about not just shoving animals down your shirt, but since the animal started making purring noises, he’d let it slide.

 

_ So now it’s time to break the ice, _ he’d thought. “I know this may seem crazy, but-”

 

And then the man  _ (the very big and what Feng would call ‘bara’ man) _ started speaking fucking  _ Chinese. _ Jake didn’t  _ immediately _ recognize the language, not until the man was a couple of sentences deep, but once he figured out what he was up against he felt the beginnings of a headache throb in the bridge of his nose because  _ then  _ he had to dig through the unpleasant feelings that arose when he thought about his father, and about the few Chinese lessons he took as a kid that he’s oddly thankful for. “I don’t speak… much Chinese.” 

 

Jake had to pause to remember what proper form of words he had to use, but  _ thankfully _ , the message was apparently well recieved, plus a few odd looks and the repeating of the word ‘Chinese’ several times before the large  _ (Jesus H. Christ, David has fucking competition) _ man simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders when he saw the look on lostness on Jake’s face.

 

Then he pointed an equally large finger to his chest, and spoke “I’m Bolin.”

 

Jake pointed back. “Bolin?” Making sure he got it right, he then pointed to himself. “Jake.”

 

“Jake?”  _ Yeah, that’s close enough. _ The survivalist nodded, shifting his weight from foot to foot while he thinks of  _ what to do  _ with the language barrier between them. So, he does what he does best: he grabs Bolin by the sleeve gently to not startle him, and leads them both over to the nearest hook so Jake can start sabotaging it with the toolbox he’s brought in.

 

As he works, Bolin chatters lightly, excited and peeking over Jake’s shoulder to watch him do his thing to the base of the hook, and even though it’s  _ quite  _ distracting, he just can’t muster it within himself to tell Bolin to back off or keep it down; his excitedness is quite rare  _ and infectious. _

 

Once the hook is properly 99’ed, Jake removes his hands from the metal base of the meathook with the utmost gracefulness so he didn’t accidentally drop the hook on his head again and knock his ass out  _ (that was a long time ago). _ Bolin behind him makes a curious noise, as if he can't understand why Jake wouldn’t just  _ drop it (that’s assuming that he knows what’s going on anyways) _ , but he doesn’t question it or pull away when Jake taps his wrist again, and leads him away to another hook he spotted in the distance- but the sudden presence of a  _ heartbeat _ stops him in his tracks, Bolin nearly  _ bowling  _ him over with his sudden he stops, but the big man has clearly heard it to with how he pivots and looks around for the source of the alert.

 

Jake doesn’t have long to act, assuming that the killer that was roaming this map was probably  _ new  _ and he had no idea who he/she/it  _ was  _ or could do, he, at least, had an obligation to keep Bolin out of harm's way until the man could fend for himself  _ (ironic given that Jake would be surprised if Bolin was at least six and a half feet tall). _

 

The saboteur whirls around on his heels, bits of his hair that wasn’t shoved underneath his beanie straying into his eyes, but he needs both hands to push Bolin behind a low wall, obscured in darkness that Jake himself thought that Claudette would be invisible in. He searched again for the words in Chinese of  _ stay here until the noise is gone _ , but the only words that he remembers is “Stay and hide.”, and he  _ hopes _ that Bolin won’t do anything stupid while Jake runs towards the heartbeat, eclipsing himself further into the Terror Radius.

 

At first, he mistakes the new Killer for the Huntress just on appearance, but then the lack of a familiar lullaby quickly rules that out in addition to when they- _she_ , turns around when he purposely knocks over a box on the side of the street. For the few, brief seconds that she stared at him and him at her, he takes her in and promptly decides that she would _definitely_ be categorized as the love child of the Huntress and the Trapper: her clothes dark green and metal plating on her arms and chest reminds him of the military, but she’s been _scarred_ , a noticeable black, nasty looking wound on her neck and a hole in her chest that’s as wide as his fist goes through to her back- to put it simply, _she looks like she’s fought somebody and probably lost._

 

She  _ is  _ pretty, though- that’s probably why Jake stares at her a millisecond too long  _ (he did it when he first saw the Huntress and took a hatchet to the face for it),  _ her facial features strikingly  _ unique  _ for some reason he can’t place- but her beauty goes out the window when she opens her mouth and  _ yells  _ at him, black ichor dripping from the side of her mouth as she yells at him  _ probably  _ in Chinese and the distinct sound of  _ metal  _ reaches his ears and he barely dodges the metal shards she sends flying at him from her non-dominant outstretched hand.

 

Yeah,  _ absolutely  _ a love child between the Trapper and the Huntress.  _ Feng’s gonna love this.  _ But Jake understands that the gawking show is over, and runs down the abandoned sidewalk, running inside of a shop that the Entity had  _ oh so thankfully  _ left open for him to run around it-  _ and there was even a pallet. _

 

You can’t  _ blame _ him for looping and abusing the shop to death, taking ages to throw down the pallet and the Killer,  _ painfully new _ , took quite a bit of time to break it. But she was  _ pissed _ , he could feel her anger radiating off of her like a nuclear reactor that had lost all cooling capacities, and was now proceeding to focus him down with laser vision and precision. 

 

After the pallet is broken, Jake is forced to run out into the street, seeing as that while the pallet inside was pretty safe, there were no actual  _ windows  _ leading to anywhere, so while the Killer is smashing the wooden slabs to bits, he darts back outside to search for more loops and hiding places  _ and other teammates _ , completely open to someone like Meg taking over for him  _ (she liked ‘breaking in’ the new killers) _ , but he failed to see anybody around bar himself and the monster on his heels-

 

A yell from behind  _ startles  _ him, but it does nothing to move him out the way when a volley of metal shards issue forth from her outstretched hand and clip him in multiple places on his sides and arms- but he doesn’t cry out nor make any sound of  _ anguish _ , simply taking his speed boost from the hit and letting it carry him inside  _ another  _ open shop across the street with nearly the same layout as the other one, except for a few aesthetic changes.

 

And even though he’s injured, he can make the fair assumption that she’s already  _ done with his shit _ , so much so that after he throws down another pallet after another long and arduous loop, she walks outside after him as a generator pops to his behind left- and leaves him in search of easier prey. While the action of her giving up chase is a great relief to his body, his mind starts to worry about how his teammates will fare up against her. Jake follows her loosely, then, still injured and bleeding from various metal shards embedding itself in his body before magically disappearing, to see who her next target is.

 

He spots two forms out of his peripherals, slightly blurry from pain-filled tears at the corner of his eyes, one of which he instantly recognizes and the other has him immensely confused. Jake spots Feng Min herself, creeping off into the shadows while another man is trying to stand down the Killer  _ (Jake starts to give the two having a showdown a wide berth while running as quickly as he can over to Feng crouching away while not hurting himself even more or attracting attention) _ , and the survivalist has to admit that the male puts up a good fight until she finally lands some of her metal shard attacks into his skin, Jake watching as he stumbles back in shock before taking off away from her.

 

The Killer follows after him, leaving the area where they just fought bloody and sizzling with Jake can only describe with  _ power _ , and calls out to Feng when the Killer is out of hearing range, catching her right before she vaults a window.

 

The gamer looks annoyed, at first, then her eyes widen slightly and her salty response dies on her lips when she sees Jake with various wounds all over his body-

 

But then it’s quickly back with a vengeance. “I don’t have bandages- I don’t even have flashlight.” _Luckily_ , he does, and he fishes then out of his toolbox without a word before he hands it to her and crouches _submissively_ at her feet. Jake hears her huff, but her hands and patting and patching up his wounds soon enough.

 

“There’s two of them.” He grits out through clenched teeth to avoid any  _ unnecessary  _ noises while she’s fixing him as best as she could.

 

“There is always new Killer and Survivor-”

 

“ _ No, two new Survivors.”  _ Feng almost fucks up when he says that little tidbit of new information as a stray memory of that guy she was working with fell in front of her eyes.

 

“I talked to the guy who just 1v1 the Killer: he said his brother was with him when the Entity got him.”

 

“That must be who I met. They look similar enough.”

The lithe girl hums at that new plottwist, tying up the loose ends of the bandages around the wounds she had tended to, and figured that would be enough for the Entity to do its magic. She figured right when Jake got to his feet, a lot more steadier and sturdier than before and his features not as severe as before, even giving her a small  _ ‘thanks’  _ as compensation.

 

“Should we…?” The survivalist trails off, and Feng gets his drift. “He needs to learn on his own first. Plus at this rate we are all gonna kermit if we don’t get gens done.”

 

And Jake  _ hates  _ leaving people behind, but Feng is making sense, and his survivalist instincts scream at him that  _ he’s on an unfamiliar map with a new Killer and he can’t afford to be overly altruistic.  _ The male mock bows to the gamer, sweeping his arm out in a salute for her to lead the way, which she does almost on instinct, taking off running across the large dance floor, weaving through piles of debris and pallets to reach the unstarted generator on the far side of the venue.

 

The both kneel down nearly simultaneously, and drive their hands inside the machine with the care of people having done this one too many times when jake pokes his head in her direction with another inquiry. “What about Bolin?”

 

“Who the fuck is Bolin?”

 

“The brother; I told you I met him. You think we should go find him?”

 

“I don’t know what he looks like, hobo.  _ You  _ can go look for him, if you want.”

 

“You’re a pretzel, you know that, Feng?”

 

“Why the fuck do you say that?”

 

“Because you’re a salty and tiny contortionist.” Feng Min usually bitch smacked people for such a comment, but with Jake… she laughs and smiles, full of sarcasm and mirth, giving the forest man a sharp glare. “I guess I’m a PILF, then.”

 

She cackles when jake pulls his hands out of the machine entirely and slides across the ground, kneeling in front of her .  **_“Do Not.”_ **

 

“Don’t kinkshame me-”

 

A new voice broke through both of their teasing, the pair twisting their torsos to look at the source of the noise. “Jake!”

 

It only takes a second for Jake to recognize  _ that _ voice. “That’s Bolin!” The more warmly-dressed of the two stands up first, closely followed by Feng as Bolin runs to them, and nearly bowls them both over in his eagerness, going off in Chinese at Jake in a tone that felt rather  _ scolding _ . Being barraged in a foreign language brought Jake’s headache back, and he holds a hand up to pause Bolin’s speech before speaking himself. “Feng, you’re gonna have to translate for me.”

 

“Wao, the rich boy doesn’t know Chinese?” The saboteur rolls his eyes, but nods “It’s been years, I’m a little rusty.  _ And- don’t tell him we saw his brother, he might run off.” _

 

_ Don’t tell me what to do, bird boy-  _ but she mentally concurs with him before she turns back to Bolin, opening her mouth to tell him to sit his bara ass down and to help them, but then she’s being patted on the head and talked to in a softer tone that makes her  _ irritated. _

 

“Aww, look at you! You’re so tiny and angry, you’re like twelve years old and ready to kick aaACKK-”

 

_ Oh, she is not doing this again. _ Tightly gripping him by the ear, she yanks him down to her level, thankful that at least he’s a bit shorter and doesn’t have to be pulled down that far, but by God, he is  _ large _ . “I will be clear: I am  _ twenty-mcfucking-four years old _ . I am not a child, and if you call me one again, I will make you adopt. Understand?” The man in her grasp nods frantically with wide eyes and a bead of sweat running down his forehead in such a comical fashion that Feng nearly laughs outloud, and then releases him with a soft huff.

 

Sparing a glance at Jake, Feng crosses her arms and stares Bolin right in the eyes as she starts to speak again. “Furry man here.” And who else does she point to but Jake? “Can’t speak your language much, but luckily I can, so you listen to me cuz trust me:  _ you have no idea what’s going on here. _ Wherever you think this is,  _ you are not there. _ Listen to me if you want to survive.” Not waiting around to hear Bolin’s answer, Feng simply knelt back at her workstation and continued with her technician prowess. “Come help get this generator turned on.”

 

“Wait, hold on- wait.” At Jake’s urging, Bolin takes the spare space besides the saboteur, but continues with his questions while he blindly fiddles with the machine with his minimal engineering knowledge. “Are you saying this isn’t real? That I’m hallucinating or something?”

 

“Uhhh…” With the way he was dressed, Feng is going to safely assume that Bolin has never played a video game in his life, so she switches to English to ask her partner. “He’s asking if he’s hallucinating. What do I say?”

 

“Tell him… it’s a nightmare. A  _ living nightmare. _ ” Deeming Jake’s reply acceptable, Feng relays the message, and watches as Bolin’s face drops a few color hues…

 

And he drops a couple more when the notification via loud screams of pain and a large, red bubble, that someone had been hooked- and Bolin apparently recognized the screams.  _ “Mako!” _

 

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

 

The Firebender is a little more than  _ ashamed _ to admit that he didn’t last  _ long _ against Kuvira. It was mostly due to  _ blind panic _ that he was caught so quickly as his mind scrambled with  _ everything  _ that was going on- and the  _ layout  _ of the area was so  _ misconstrued  _ that the streets that he had grown up on were nearly unfamiliar to him and took several wrong turns that Kuvira eventually took advantage of, and knocked him down with a direct hit on his back with her main weapon, sending Mako sprawling to the ground in a  _ painful _ ,  _ undignified _ manner.

 

He’s in such pain that he can’t muster up enough strength to spit the curse on his lips at her, and that when she lifts him up  _ onto her shoulder _ , it takes him a full minute to realize that she is,  _ curiously _ , not taking him to some secret hideout or chamber to torture or kill him-

 

_ No _ , she puts him on a fucking  _ hook _ with such force that it take a single second for the shock to wash over him like a gust of wind, and suddenly he’s screaming at the top of his lungs with pain and agony, clutching at his shoulders while his body instinctively curled up before going limp.

 

His mind goes blank and dark for a few moments, lost to the shock of the traumatic injury, but then he starts  _ panicking _ , twisting his head around in case Kuvira  _ wasn’t done with him _ , and catches her eye as she leered at him while back up, then spat at his dangling form with black ichor.

 

Then, she was gone, off to…  _ somewhere. _ The Firebender takes a moment to get a grisley look at the object he’s hanging from- a platinum metal hook- but something off in the distance is more eye-catching than the silvery metal: it’s a collection of three forms, yellow and huddled around something, before one or two of them start moving in his direction-  _ no, only one approaches him now _ , running at first before slowing to a jog as they approached and the sight alone gives Mako a slight pang of  _ hope  _ within his punctured chest.

 

From a distance, the form looked like his Bolin, but when they approach him Mako decides that even though the form is similar to his brother’s, it is far too short and less bulky to be him, but too big to be the girl he met earlier ( _ and Mako has a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn’t come get him, anyways). _

 

The form approaches him  _ (a male, he sees) _ with the upmost care and caution, looking up and down at the same time as if worried about stepping into some trap, and the Firebender is left wondering  _ why  _ he would think there’d be some sort of foottrap on the ground-?

 

_ “Stay.”  _ He’s told by the man coming to his aid, and then arms are reaching for his underarms, and hauling him painfully off the hook and back onto his unsteady feet.  _ Stay?  _ Why should he stay when Kuvira will soon come back for him?

 

Hands are pushing him down, then, and bandages are being loosely wrapped around his wounds before he could stop them from doing so. “Hey-” He chokes out, coughing up a bit of his own blood before he can speak any further, spitting it between his feet as Mako felt his wounds…  _ shrink? _ All thought of him trying to stand up and leave diminish when the person who’s attending to him is apparently a  _ masterful healer  _ and can heal even the most grievous of wounds down to simple cuts and abrasions before he can even properly make sense of it all.

 

And soon enough, Mako is well again and back on his feet and in  _ serious  _ need of an explanation, one that he never got because a ball of light along with a loud metallic noise sounded again, and the heartbeat started sounding again, but this time far off into the distance- and Mako could see Kuvira herself making her way towards it at a fast pace.

 

Feeling well and brave enough, Mako started running towards her, hoping to catch her attention so that  _ whoever  _ had sent up that signal had time to get away and-

 

_ “Stop!”  _ Two hands are on his arm again, this time grinding him to a halt and whirling him around to…  _ look down  _ at the man with firmness and concern etched on his face. The man started speaking in a foreign language most of the time before interjecting his speech with a few words he could understand, telling him something along the lines of  _ “Don’t go over there it’s dangerous” _ , and-

 

Well, yeah, it was dangerous and he had  _ just  _ had  _ firsthand _ experience with how dangerous it was- but the man was making him think; could he afford to do it again? After all, that girl  _ seemed  _ like she could handle herself, if that’s who Kuvira was going after-  _ but then again, what if it was Bolin? _ Could he take that chance?

 

The decision was for him, though, when he heard a familiar voice call out his name, the Earthbender’s form sprinting towards him while a smaller form sprinted  _ away  _ from them with Kuvira behind them in the background. The Firebender’s amber eyes were so focused on Kuvira chasing the young woman that Bolin almost knocked him over in a bear hug, causing him to stagger and grimace as the large hands of his brother accidently poked at his still sore wounds.

 

“Mako!” Bolin exclaimed happily, always one to get overexcited. “You’re okay! You had me worried- I thought Kuvira had gotten ahold of you or something!”

 

The taller brother allowed Bolin to  _ crush  _ his spine for a few moments longer before pushing him back so he could get oxygen back into his squeezed lungs,  _ swearing  _ he heard one or two of his ribs crack when his diaphragm expanded with his inhale. “She did- but I’m fine now.” He quickly added to make his younger brother not worry about his wellbeing,  _ even though he was just dangling for a hook not a minute ago. _

 

“Are you sure?”  _ Curse Bolin and his big eyes. _ Mako huffed in pretend anger, but really was, as usual, touched by his brother’s compassion. “Yeah, I’m fine.” And Bolin seem to accept his brother’s less than truthfulness with a nod, before turning to Jake and giving him a wide smile as well, clapping him on the back with a wide-armed hug and spoke to Jake in what he deciphered as a “Thanks” he presumed, for helping his brother.

 

_ That’s more than he gets from some people. _

 

But  _ there’s no time to waste _ , Jake decides as he starts urging the brothers to follow him towards the steers, figuring that there  _ must be  _ at least one generator out in the open somewhere that they could get done while the Killer is  _ busy. _

 

_ Jake just hopes Feng isn’t being too overconfident. _

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Haha! Weak bitch needs a crutch!” Taking the time to t-bag, Feng Min did what she does best: make the Killer want to die.

 

Despite having to dodge and weave through multiple metal shards attacks that were shot at her in rage and furor, Feng could easily outpace the Killer, especially with all these loops available to her- honestly, whoever designed this map up there did not really think it through because she’s already abused one loop for so long another generator was completed and she was starting to run out of her usual insults. 

 

“Come get me, metal fucker!” The gamer yells as the window she vaults is  _ finally  _ blocked by the Entity-  _ time to find some more loops-  _ with the Killer letting out a scream of frustration as the wooden slab hit her right in her chest, stunning her further for a few moments while Feng took off for more  _ favorable  _ tiles.

 

_ “I will get you!”  _ The lithe woman heard the Killer yell as she exited the little shop they were in, her senses on  _ high alert  _ as the aura of the Killer was revealed to her as she broke the pallet that she had just recently had been painfully acquainted with, and watched her pink aura as she righted herself, then followed Feng outside to  _ yet another  _ loop, but at least this time it was outside.

 

Another gen was activated as she ran around and around the debris pile with a convenient pallet right in the middle, throwing down that pallet after the loop had run its course with a hard  _ thunk!  _ to Kuvira’s head and another round of swearing vengeance upon Feng’s eternal soul.  _ Yeah, like she had one. _

 

Her  _ alert  _ came to her aid again, showing the Killer breaking the pallet and then keeping the chase- and then shooting a volley of metal shards at her, forcing her to swerve to the left, away from her intended path and towards a new direction- where she could hear a generator nearly completed and the sounds of people working on it. 

 

_ She might as well sandbag in style. _ She made it her point to run by Jake, clutching her right arm as it was bleeding from a nick from a metal shard. “Sorry but she’s right on my ass-”

 

Jake threw his head backwards, not getting up from his spot but giving the small woman a heated gaze as she ran by, the heartbeat ratcheting up in his ears.  _ “Feng!”  _ Hissing, he whirls his head back towards the direction she had come from, the two brothers taking note of the change in the situation and both of them standing up as well. Kuvira came through their area right at that very moments, only pausing for the briefest of moments to look at the three men on the generator- then switched targets.

 

“Bolin!” Mako cried out as he saw Kuvira side step and  _ swing  _ at his brother, and he instinctively stepped in front of him to take the hit for him; a blade that cut across his chest painfully, scraping and exposing his cuts where his skin was spliced, nearly knocking him over from the  _ force  _ behind it, banging his leg on the side of the machine as he took off with Kuvira following right behind him, ignoring everyone else in the vicinity. 

 

Jake saw Bolin at the very last moment jumping up and preparing to take off after his elder brother, and caught his arm at the last second, yanking him back down and shoving his hands back into the generator that was nearly done. “Finish it.” The large man didn’t understood what Jake said, and still had his eyes trained on his brother’s retreating and limping form that was leaving puddles of blood behind him when Feng came back from hiding around the corner, and knelt by Jake’s side when she caught sight of how  _ close  _ it was to completion.

 

“They’re not gonna leave without each other, Feng.”

 

“Wel, I’m gonna leave with  _ you _ .”  _ Ew, hetero.  _ “They can do whatever they want.”  _ Just a few more wires, and… _ The final horn sounded, and the exit gates lit up for everyone at the exact same moment that Mako’s form flopped to the ground with a scream of pain.

 

This time, Jake couldn’t grab Bolin hard enough to stop him from leaving, but Feng came to his aid and ran in from of the younger brother, stopping him temporarily in his tracks. “If you go after him-” Throwing out her arms when he tried to go around her, Feng determined to make him listen to her. “-you’re on your own. Me and Jake are leaving.”

 

“Fine!” Speaking with definity, Bolin patted her on the head for some unholy reason before stepping around her and taking off towards the notification of Mako being hooked for a second time. “At least you two should live! Don’t worry about me!”

 

As Bolin’s form retreated, the saboteur came up to Feng to grab her arm, and to guide her to the exit gate he was eyeing. “What did he say, Feng? Don’t lie to me now-”

 

“He said we go, not to worry about him.” She took the lead, now dragging Jake behind her as they rush to the gate, and shooting Jake a look back when he made a noise of disbelief at her answer. “That’s what he said! Besides, I already have enough Objective points this round: you can get exit gate.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Bolin had only gotten a glimpse before of what that air blimp meant, and he felt his heart hammer in his chest at the knowledge of what lay at the center of it, fraught with worry for his brother but his  _ love  _ for his sibling eclipsing all fear and giving him the courage and bravery to run forward, getting closer and closer to the red, dangling aura, so close that he could hear  _ crackling and gurgling  _ noises, along with the noises of his dying brother… and the smug Kuvira, standing only yards away from him and laughing wildly.

 

_ “Did you think you would escape? Run away and escape my Empire?”  _  Her black eyes and leaking wounds competed heavily with the sight of his brother fighting off those  _ black claws _ that slowly inched closer and closer to his injured chest with every passing second, urging a crouching Bolin to come up with a plan to save his brother.

  
“Kuvira- look!” Mako spat out with some blood dribbling down his chin, giving the woman the angriest glare he could. “Look at you!”

 

_ “I have never been better!” _

 

“You’re insane. Some-” Mako groaned in pain as a claw nicked his shoulder, casing his hold to tremble. “- _ evil spirit _ has a hold of you!”

 

_ “It gave me strength, but I am in control! You all will FALL before me!”  _ Bolin watched as Mako’s arms trembled, sweat and blood running down his face and neck as he struggled in a losing battle…  _ he couldn’t sit there any longer!  _ The broader man jumped up from his hiding position, and spirinted towards his dying brother, instinctively shoving his hands underneath his armpits and using all the strength in his shoulders to lift him upwards-

 

“No!” But Kuvira was faster, grabbing him in a vulnerable moment and ripping him away from his brother who yelled at him before his cries were silenced with the sickening sound of speared skin and gore, and he watched as he was carried away and slung onto another hook a short distance away as the form of his brother was taken upward into a mass of black claws and smoke, and he can only assume that he will join his brother up there as claws instantly form around him and come down upon him the same way as the did Mako.

 

_ You have done well, Kuvira.  _ The Entity spoke to the victorious Killer in a soft tone, and Kuvira felt pride well up in her open chest.  _ You can do better, but rest, for now. Enjoy your Empire until I call upon you to protect it again. _

 

_ “I will not let them take it from me!” _


End file.
